Nesting
by Melpomene melancholica
Summary: One evening, he went home, entered his house, and saw something he shouldn't have had to see again. Vaguely SasuSaku.
1. Night Terrors

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, etc. Borrowing for the purposes of entertainment, procrastination, and basically, escapism. So back off. *growls* (I'm kidding. Please don't hurt me.) 

**Nesting **   
by Melpomene Melancholica 

WARNING: Possible spoilers, especially chapter 145 in the manga. 

**_Night Terrors_**

The blush that still painted the horizon was somewhat misleading----for one who had been locked up in some cavern for a few months, anyway. As was its habit on high summer evenings, the sun lingered late that day. A dark-haired jounin, only one among the fine shinobi loyal to the Village of the Leaf, brooded atop a tree branch in that forest practically entwined with his hometown. Watching the sun sink was almost a custom of his. It provided him a time alone—from teammates, from clients, from people in general----not because he hated the world or anything like that. Silent space was a simple necessity of his soul, a time to think, to feel... to recuperate. 

That day, he had arrived from his week-long mission almost abstractedly. He had been eager to go home----mostly because it _was_ home now and not just four walls slapped together, topped with a roof—but when he stepped through the village gates, a weird sort of feeling came gnawing at his insides. 

That feeling vexed him. He couldn't understand what it was, and a high-achieving man such as himself didn't take well to such vague things. It wasn't worry—what was there to worry about? It just... was. Unsettlement. Plain and simple. 

A week wasn't that long a time to be away from home; his missions ranged from lasting several hours to several months. Maybe it was because she was coming closer and closer to that time. Maybe it's because he was simply eager to see her. 

Which was ridiculous. That tiny tightness in his chest? That... that restlessness? All because he missed her? 

But he did, didn't he? He missed her. 

He shrugged to himself in irritation, not even caring if anybody saw him wordlessly arguing with himself. (He was too fast to be ogled by passers-by, anyhow.) Of course, he missed her. Wasn't it human nature to gravitate toward status quo? And they'd been living together for over two years now, had known each other for more than a decade. He usually did miss her (though he was wrought to admit that) whenever he left town, but there was rarely this feeling. 

Maybe he was just being stupid now, on top of being strange. It had to be the effects of being cloistered with Uzumaki Naruto, Rock Lee, Inuzuku Kiba, that dog Akamaru, and clawed critters run amok in a cramped, minuscule tent that was planted three feet from the edge of a sheer cliff being lambasted by a furiously stormy ocean, battered by raging thunderstorms for several nights running-----all to retrieve a tattered, stinky, puke-stained list. 

It had to be that. 

When his house came into view----it was unmistakable being the only inhabited one in that sector of the town---- his heart tripped. For one hideous quarter of a second, his body rose into that fevered pitch, hovered in that fork that demanded him to choose between an escape of desperation and a battle to the death. His eyes spun, whirred like blades, as they tried to see what cannot be seen... what even they cannot see. 

_It had to be that... _

Then the moment passed; he started breathing again, and his eyes returned to their inactive color. She was probably out visiting Nara Shikamaru's wife, he thought. Yes, that had to be it. That's why the house was dark. She was out. 

That had to be it. 

See, he had gotten use to that, too. She usually came home before he did, even when it was her who had a mission. Their house was usually glowing with hearty incandescence (with firelight, during chilly winter nights) by this time. The air would be heady with the cooking's aroma, the kitchen bustling with activity. And she would be there, arms akimbo, as he came in, expecting a kiss, perhaps--- mostly his help to prepare their meals. 

She hated dicing onions, see. 

Among other things. 

So he approached the dark, looming building that was his ancestral home without further ado. Even as a little orphan boy, his routine was to leap atop that ancient tree stooping painfully towards the loft on the third floor, balance his way on the bridging branch and unto one sturdy lintel. The gabled window there always yielded to his hand; he knew exactly where to push on the ebon pane to slide it aside. What possessed him to go through his front door, a path he usually reserved for guests, was a question he couldn't answer. 

Fifteen years, was it? It was fifteen years ago when he discovered the folly of passing through those doors when he already had an inkling of what he would find from the corpses he saw on the streets, when a voice from within had already warned him not enter. He rarely passed through that door, or walked down that hallway to reach that room, even though there was zero chance he'd witness again the scene a boy of seven, home late from training, once beheld. 

But that evening, he did pass through that passage once again. 

_And emerged in hell._

When he saw... Saw what he saw... Hot-white fury and searing-cold terror wrought themselves into a potent blade and stabbed him to sweet, lingering death right there and then at the threshold of that tragic clan's house. 

Again. 

AGAIN. 

Blinding grief, there was none of that yet. Pain? Exquisite pain, the kind beyond relief, would come late and stay late. Now, there was just emptiness, emptiness of thought and sanity, emptiness because the sheerness of terror and fury was base, animal-like.... pathetic. Fear fueled rage, fueled the innate drive for one's survival. Rage stifled fear, kept one from disintegrating into a helpless heap of stone-stiff meat ready for the pickings. 

_Move. Move! MOVE!_

The stench of blood. The eternal echo of death screams. The gleam of steel striking to deliver the final cut. The shadowed visage of the executioner, the butcher that didn't think the effort was worth to gut a pathetic pig like him... him petrified, him disbelieving. 

_I'm... I'm so afraid!_

Not anymore. He was no longer that weak, defenseless, brand-new orphan. And that butcher, that psychopath, that so-called prodigy was already dead. 

Why did he feel so helpless then? 

Because this death... these deaths... 

They would be—were---- as good as his own! 

A shudder ripped his frozen body asunder, cast his pieces unto the blood-soaked earth. He spewed out the burning contents of his stomach, spasmed at the force his body hurled them out, as if poisoned. Poison or not, his heart was relinquished from the death grip of that initial shock. 

And he could breathe again. He could think again. He could see again. Smell, hear, feel beyond those hallucinations, that delusion. That delusion... 

Yes. Yes! There was none of the metallic smell of fresh blood. There were none of those tortured cries. 

She could be alive then. 

Or unreal. 

She could be not real. 

She was a specter then. A combination of all the phantoms that ever plagued his distorted existence. 

She wasn't real. 

He crawled to her, to her prostrate, motionless form. Like a worm. Hatefully, miserably. Clawing his way through that slickness that covered the floor. (Was that wetness on the floor even real? Was that trickle of blood that once crept past his face as he lay there with debilitating fear now a deluge to drown him?) 

He crawled the way _he_ told him to, still did what that person told him to. 

No. He wasn't running away this time. He wasn't the foolish little brother who was so afraid. He was his own man now. And he had to know. 

He had to know... 

_Because she cannot be real._

Almost now... The pads of his fingers were almost touching her, could almost feel her, could almost know. His insides coiled, coiled, coiled...tensed with such pressure that backlash would undoubtedly be inevitable, be unmistakably deadly. 

She was... 

_She's real._

And she was warm. She was warm. Her flesh moved rhythmically under his arm. Up. Down. Up. Down. She was... 

She was alive. 

He wept then. There could be no shame in that. He wept like a child, sniveled with explosive relief. Indeed, his heart would soon burst. Probably.... It would. It would burst. 

She was alive! 

He touched her face, soft and yielding under his fingers... her hair, pale and gray in that scanty light... her chest... 

There. He could feel the vibrations from the core of her being, that steady, serene beat bounding with life. 

He crawled closer and gently placed his head between her breasts, his ear against her thorax. 

There it was... He could hear her heartbeat. 

She was alive. 

_But then, what about_...? He could be celebrating prematurely. 

For a very brief moment, fear rived his being yet again. But he looked past that and calmly pulled himself into a sitting position. His adroit hands came to rest upon her belly... searching, searching... the way she taught him. 

He smiled through the tears. Like an idiot. It was just a light tap, tiny, but he found what he sought. There. 

A low rumbling laugh issued from his dry lips. It was a strange sound, an alien sound that had not been heard in that room for ages, one rarely produced by his throat. 

An idiot. He was an idiot. She was fine. She was asleep. There was no blood. There was no gore. There was just that altar erected in memory of the Uchiha, the clan virtually exterminated by its most powerful seed. There were just those two (one-and-a-half?) relatively recent addition to the clan lying there on the floor. 

His black eyes skittered to the side, to that rocking thing he had accidentally kicked into movement. It was a bucket; inside were the remains of gritty, soapy water and a dilapidated little sponge. 

_That idiot_, he thought, shaking his head. 

Spring cleaning—during summer. Sleeping----on the cold, hard floor. 

She really was an idiot sometimes. And annoying. Did he mention annoying? 

He sighed, ran a hand through his disheveled mop of black hair. He straightened, gathered her in his arms, made his way upstairs to their living quarters, and brought her to their room. Pulling out the coverlet while carrying her was a bit challenging even for him; he struggled for a bit. When she was safely tucked in bed, a pillow propped under her back to tilt her sideways a bit, he stripped and took a long, hot shower, contentedly thinking about nothing but how nice the water felt on his back. 

Nearly an hour later, he joined her in bed and slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

~ 041804 2339hrs 

Comments, complaints, etcetera would be much appreciated. Thank you. =) 


	2. Feeling and Thinking and Being Real

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, etc. Borrowing for the purposes of entertainment, procrastination, and basically, escapism. So back off. growls (I'm kidding. Please don't hurt me.) 

**_Feeling and Thinking and Being Real_**

When she woke up that morning with a broad smile on both her face and heart, she knew her husband had returned home, in spite of the empty space beside her. Oh, there were signs that indicated his presence here and there. His scent on their sheets, for instance. The closet door, slightly ajar at the exact manner he was wont to leave it, wont to drive her crazy, was another. The translucent lace that was their curtain... it was slightly ruffled at that corner of the window; he had a habit of reclining at the window sill, brooding on the sleeping village at dead hours of the night, staring at winking lights, like some sentinel on a late shift. 

And of course, the most concrete sign of all: his hitai-ate headband lying on the bedside table. 

She rose to her feet with a groan, tottering slightly. One hand automatically rested on her belly, as the other grazed the bed just in case further support was needed. Heartily, she stretched like a cat when she gained balance, making cute little noises akin to contented purrs. He always did smile whenever she did that----and always tried to hide it, naturally. Hah! As if he was any less amusing when he yawned. Can you imagine a widely feared, prodigious ninja rumbling like a bear and pawing on his bedsheets? 

Where was he, anyway? 

Their bedroom door was open by a crack. As she neared it, the smell of frying sausage wafted to her nose. She glided outside and on to the kitchen, urged on by a doubly whetted appetite, still dreamy, for sleep had not yet completely left her head. 

Sure enough, there he was, standing at the stove on a gray cotton shirt and blue pajamas, busily manipulating pan and chopsticks as skillfully as he wielded shuriken or kunai. 

She didn't bother to try to startle him; that never worked, and he never pretended it did. 

"Look who's back," she crooned in a low voice, kissing his cheek as she hugged him from behind. "Good morning, dear." 

He didn't answer, didn't return her kiss, didn't even look at her. For a moment, she was torn between wanting to crumple up and wanting to explode; what could she have possibly done to upset him now when she hasn't even seen him for days? (Well, she did have to go to the bathroom several times last night, but he was used to that and probably wasn't disturbed.) She knew that it could be not her at all, that her husband shut out the world unexpectedly when he needed space. But one doesn't really get used to getting hurt by a loved one; one may become familiar to feelings elicited, but never totally immune. 

But then he touched her hand briefly, and the feeling of rejection subsided somewhat. She let go to allow him a wider range of motion and took a step back, watching him wordlessly. 

"Sit," he ordered tersely after a few moments. 

She did as she was told graciously and continued watching him from her place at their little square table. He finished with his preparations swiftly and had her breakfast served in under ten minutes. Then, he sat beside her and started eating in silence. 

Between mouthfuls, she suddenly spoke, "You're mad at me, aren't you?". 

"No." He didn't look up from his plate when he said this. 

"Oh, yes, you are." She titled her head to one side thoughtfully. "I wonder what for. I wasn't the one who arrived home a day later than promised. Oh, and without my requested foodstuff, apparently." 

"I left the crabs at the Hokage's freezer." 

"That's good. Care to tell me why I suddenly feel like I'm inside one?" 

"Because you slept on cold concrete last night," he answered, this time glaring at her. 

Sakura's face lit up in understanding. "Oh, that's it? That's the reason why you're mad? Well, then, I'm sorry I fell asleep in front of the shrine. And thank you for taking me to bed." 

"Obviously missed the point." 

"Oh, Sasu, I won't get sick because of that." 

"What were you doing down there, anyway? Cleaning?" 

"Yes." 

"What possessed you to suddenly start scraping my floors off with a doggy sponge?" 

"Cleanliness. And it's my floor, too." 

"Didn't I tell you before not to go down there?" 

"Yes." 

Sasuke's expression was unreadable as he stared at her. 

"Yes," Sakura repeated, returning his gaze steadily. "You've told me not to go down there more than twenty times before." 

"Don't go down there again," he said simply. Sasuke wasn't the argumentative type, after all, just as his wife wasn't the arguable type. 

"I don't see why not. It's not like I'm contaminating the place." 

"Contaminating something else," he muttered with a scowl. 

That statement, she caught but didn't quite get. Contaminated what? Memories? Because she and that room weren't compatible? Because she was alive and they were dead? That made sense, she thought. They were killed in that room, the people he loved. Therefore, it disturbed him to see her in there. 

Still... 

"It's my clan, too," she said in a tiny voice. 

Silence. 

She could pray for them, too, couldn't she? For peace. Theirs and his. And it was only right she honor them. It wasn't as if her presence in that room would be some sort of desecration... 

Finally, he spoke. "Different branch," he said, rather dismissive in manner. "A dead one. Don't go down there." 

"It's my house, too," she answered, this time a little less sure of herself. 

"Aa." 

She sighed, poked the lone piece of sausage on her plate, and sighed again. They weren't getting any where. It would be best if one of them backed down in the mean time. Her, probably. 

After a long period of quiet, she spoke up again. 

"Ne, Sasuke-kun?" 

"Aa." 

"Can I have that extra piece of mango?" 

"How can I possibly deprive you of that?" he returned drily. 

She laughed, and everything was all right again. 

0402104 2337hrs 

AN: Jemiul, Ori, and the un-named one, thanks for reading and for the comments! Again, comments, complaints, etcetera would be much appreciated. Thank you. =) 


	3. Willing Dreams

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, etc. Borrowing for the purposes of entertainment, procrastination, and basically, escapism. So back off. growls (I'm kidding. Please don't hurt me.) 

_**Willing Dreams**_

The incense burned. 

He stuck the slim stick he had just lit before the altar and stared at its charred tip, at the red smoldering line slowly crawling down the shaft. The visible emission was confined to the serpentine coils of wispy gray smoke, but the spread of the rich fragrance throughout the room was a bit more insidious. As he was nearby, his nose was speedily invaded; he barely noticed it, though. In his head, he had already smelled the scent as soon as he had entered the room. It was part of the ritual.

He stood there for a period that was neither long nor short, stood there immersed in the aroma of incense, in his thoughts, in his memories, and in time. 

In the old days, the time before that event, this room wasn't quite so empty. It was the common room; the family met there, talked there, sat there... Other clan members were entertained there during visits. All of the Hokages have sat there at least once, either in grave consultation or gay socialization.

On cool evenings, his mother would be kneeling at the side, and he would be sitting in front of her in grudging compliance, pouting, as she tried to establish order in his unruly hair. His father would be sitting beside them, sipping tea, regaling the family with stories about squabbling distant cousins, politics in the Fire country, the old sakura tree nearby that got uprooted by the storm, or the newly released line of hypoallergenic eye drops. And his brother...

His brother wasn't quite in the picture. Itachi would be off to one side, vaguely distant, like a half-materialized phantom randomly caught on film. Anyhow, when _he_ came up in Sasuke's musings, the rest of his imaginings seemed to fade away, to waste away as if from a disease. His mother's soothing voice would die into whispers, eventually into silence, leaving him to finish a soliloquy on shuriken, angles, bugs, and the way the long, long, raven black hair of the teacher glinted like a still pond on a moonlit night . His father's would be cut off abruptly, like that time the kitchen help stumbled to his presence and spilled guts...(Oh yes, the mange sharingan showed him that much, details complete down to the last strings of adipose tissue clinging on those intestines hanging out.)

Thus left alone, the child in his head would grow tired of talking by himself. Eventually, that boy learned silence—just as his real-life counterpart eventually did.

Interestingly, his daydreams that day----if one can call them that----consisted of a new string of images. They weren't even memories derived from real happenings. They were... misperceptions, the effect of the young, drab moon's poor job of lighting up his house. 

The new images were of her, naturally, the ones he thought he saw when he came home last night. She was lying there on the middle of the floor, much like the way his mother did long, long ago, her hair amassed to one side, glinting a dull bluish gray. There was fluid spilled around her-----formerly part of her cleaning implements, obviously. Her belly was the appropriate size, bulging out almost accusingly at him. He was there sitting beside her, and not toppled atop her, watching her sleep like a fool who had all the time in the world. 

That image was one of the better ones, much better than the variants of wild nights of violence and gore, of rage and terror, and pain.... He focused on that image, in spite of himself, and the nausea, the urge to run screaming hysterically out into the streets was kept at bay. He even welcomed a stray memory or so from back in the days of Team Seven, from those times he thought she was finished, like that time she dueled with a foreign hunter-nin four years ago. That time, she stupidly tripped on her own foot and nearly slipped into the bowels of the fiery earth after snagging a very narrow win. At that time, while Kakashi and Naruto were scrambling to attend to her cracked skull, he was busy trying to bite the whole damn thing off. She lived, of course, but they had to pry him off her before proceeding with the five-hour surgery.

She hadn't forgiven her for her foolishness then and definitely not yesterday. He was still angry––no, the word was 'irritated'---- at his wife. In fact, he was getting just a little bit more pissed as he felt her nearing presence. 

"I thought I told you not to come down here," he said in an impressively level voice.

"Hmmm..." was all he got in return so he didn't pursue the issue. She was as stubborn as a mule, anyway, and no amount of nagging would alter her mind.

He remembered something very important then and so turned to her abruptly with a suspicious little glare. "Have you drunk your milk this afternoon?" he demanded.

"Yes, daddy," she replied in a tiny voice.

"Good." He turned back to the shrine.

"I'm glad you approve, daddy."

He opened his mouth to tell her to stop, changed his mind, and said, "Aa." Last time, he demanded why she called him that, when their baby wasn't even born yet, vaguely perplexed. He berated himself for even asking because it was stupid—obviously, he already _was_ a father as that burgeoning mass in front of her continually reminded— and because it was unnecessary since another second later he would have realized she was just teasing him after puzzling out that he was actually questioning her amusement, not the fact of her calling him "daddy" itself. Or maybe it had been his reaction he was confused with. The feeling was new and surprising... Strange. Unnamed. That was how the "why" just popped out of his mouth. Of course, he felt like a fool that day. (Days like those seemed to come often lately.)

He didn't really mind that much though. Age and experience added a bit more of an accepting edge to his nature. 

Presently, he could feel her turquoise eyes on his back. He turned slightly and gazed at her from the corner of a half-closed eye. Her look was speculative; he could almost hear the gears clicking and snapping in the convolutions of her mind. She remained unperturbed even when she caught him watching her stare at him. Her hand came up briefly to caress her belly, a gesture she was wont to perform unconsciously, but her gaze remained on him, now half questioning. 

He watched as her other hand came to rest at the small of her back, giving an impatient air to her pose. Even though he knew the gesture was to relieve pain from the weight pulling on her muscles there, a pressured little part of him rose up unbidden in defense.

"What?" he snapped.

She blinked at him without guile. "What what?"

_What do you mean what what?_ he was tempted to retort but was able to resist. He shouldn't have had to ask (not aloud anyway). He knew that look. That quiet gaze meant something simple: an offering of self. Years ago, she would have asked, "is there anything wrong," or "do you want to talk?" Sakura was an intelligent woman, of course. She learned those questions amounted to nothing. When he wanted to talk, Sasuke would talk.

Despite her prodigious academic prowess, however, that learning spanned years. Years. Even now, she still lapsed occasionally and asked those questions. On his part, he still cruelly told her, in the words of his thirteen year old counterpart, "to go practice a jutsu or two" instead of bothering him. Today he had one of those lapses. After all, she didn't have to ask----verbally or otherwise----what was wrong with him. There was nothing wrong with him. 

"You weren't really mad at me for going down here yesterday, were you?"

"Didn't I already answer that?"

"Sorry, wrong question." She sighed. "You weren't really mad at _me_ a while ago, were you?"

He glared at her. "I already said I'm not angry."

She raised an eyebrow dubiously.

"Did you come down here just to ask me that?"

"Hmmm..." She yawned generously, then assumed a thoughtful look. "Yes, I think so. Aside from evasively prying into your private affairs, I think that's it."

"Are you practicing or something?"

"Or something. I'm not practicing anything right now."

"You come across amazingly condescending without sounding it."

"Well you managed to _sound_ it, too, Sasuke-kun." Her eyes were hard as corundum. "We attended the same parenting class, you know."

_Parenting class?_ He had no idea what she was talking about.

Instead of pursuing for a reply, she began looking around the room. Her eyes eventually settled at the bucket still lying on its side in the middle of the floor. Then, as if somebody or something told her to (her damned intuition probably), she looked at him. His face must have given away something, since it didn't take long for her to figure things out afterwards. The woman had excellent knowledge on human psychology; she was, after all, a special jounin on genjutsu.

"I... Sasuke..." 

Her green eyes were eloquent with pain. He had to look away.

"Yesterday," she began, painting a scenario in a hushed voice. "I visited Ino-chan in the morning. Then, I spent the afternoon scrubbing the floors upstairs. After I finished there, I started down here. I must have fallen asleep on the floor and knocked over the pail filled with soap. When you came home last night to a dark house after being away for some time you must have...you must have..." She choked.

He stood there and watched her as she surrendered to tears.. He stood there, as straight, tall, and impassive as the incense stick as she covered her mouth and cried

Minutes passed until he spoke amidst her sobs. "There's no need to dramatize it," he said gruffly, and he held out a hand to her tentatively.

She came to him then and held him for a while. He allowed her that and stood still and silent as she shook against him, still staring at the still burning incense through the soft cloud of her shoulder-length pink hair, still smelling the pervasive pungence of the past mingling with the fruity smell of her shampoo... Eventually, her crying subsided, and she settled into a serene quietness.

"You know, you'd have to have new memories about this room eventually," she murmured against his shoulder a little later.

He encircled his arms around her, settled her against him in such a way that she'd be able to breathe and not have her belly compressed.

"Not to replace the old ones, you know," she elaborated awkwardly. "I mean... to balance out the bad ones. To ease the hurt... You get what I'm saying?"

"Aa."

"And I'm sorry I scared you, but I won't be staying out of this room either."

"Aa." Absently, he rubbed her side, gradually progressing down the side of the roundness. She was aching there, he knew.

She lifted her face to peer at him suspiciously. "You're not planning to... do something excessive are you?"

"Define excessive."

"Like performing a sealing jutsu on this room."

"No." That was a silly idea, he thought, but he kept his peace and went on to more important matters. "Don't go down here to clean again." 

"Wha–?" Her eyes widened in dismay. "Didn't I just say---"

"How soon will it be?" he mused aloud. Soon, probably, he thought. The baby was coming soon. All the signs pointed towards that.

"You're changing the–"

"You're nesting," he explained. He had thought she already knew this piece of information. "Don't waste these bursts of energy for some useless idiocy."

"Nesting?" Sakura blinked slowly. "Ne, those are two different---"

"I know that. The nesting is all that preparation you're doing. That bursts of energy I'm talking about could be a sign of impending labor. So don't do stupid stuff and end up exhausted."

"Free birthing classes for the Hokage-sama's elite ninjas? I'm glad you have to listen to _her_." She smiled slightly as a realization dawned on her. "So that's why you didn't want to attend the formal classes with me. Hokage-sama must have had you saturated with info since... since when?"

She stifled a grin at his thundercloud expression. Of course, there was not a crack on her face that hinted a change from her commiserating expression, but he knew she was vastly amused. Amused!

"I know, I know. The Godaime can be a tough teacher. And blunt. And really physical... She's fun, though." She grinned anyway. "I wonder why she gave _you_ extra days in your paternity leave." 

"..." 

"It's almost scary, though, what you said about bursts of energy. Do you really think I'm going to go into labor soon?"

"Can't tell." For some reason, he suddenly felt very tired. With the prospect of the nearing birth looming in the very near future, he knew they'd both need as much rest as they could get. An afternoon nap seemed quite attractive to him. In fact, starting then and there shouldn't be such a bad idea. 

"Ne, Sasuke-kun," she spoke again. 

"Aa?" He was starting to drowse on his feet and just allowed one eye to creak open to look at her inquiringly.

"I remember now what I came down here for."

The room needed to be occupied more often, he decided, if only to open windows and doors to have it aired out. It was just a little too drafty---another reason for her to stay upstairs. She was warm, though, he noticed, and that was very nice. "What?" he answered. 

"I wanted to ask how your mission went. And how Naruto is."

"You've had missions on tropical islands during typhoon season before; you can imagine. Naruto'll be over sooner or later----after he talks his woman half to death."

"Hinata-chan likes to listen. How about Lee-chan? And Kiba? And Akamaru?" 

"Fine, fine, fine. They all had fun dodging those six-inch pincers."

She winced. "I am sorry you had to deal with those crabs on top of everything."

He glanced at the stick of incense and saw it was almost consumed halfway. He thought about lighting a new one but decided to do that later. The incense could wait. It would have to wait. "Anything else?" he asked her instead.

"Oh, and I forgot to say 'welcome home'."

Sasuke smiled, then, and gave his wife her customary kiss.

"I'm back, Sakura."

And wait the incense did.  
  
End. May 2, 2004 (8:35pm)

* * *

AN: Thanks to all the readers, especially to those who took time to comment (I'm usually too lazy myself. --;; ). I'm glad the characterization worked out in the 2nd part; I had been worried about that at first. And as for the 1st part, I'd been worried about portraying Sasuke's feelings. ; So thanks for commenting on that, **Visions** and **Kenhime**, and for letting me know that the horror and fear came across. =) 

On Sakura calling Sasuke "dear," I had originally written "anata" there, **Seiyo**. For some reason, that... didn't sound right to me at all. LOL. ; So I changed it to "dear." (Which is odd because "anata" is usually translated as "dear." eheh). 

This fic reminds you of K/K, **Midnightcrow**? O.o Oro. That's... that's evil. ;; (jk) 

Hmm... I'm happy, happy you found the SasuSaku in the 2nd part as subtle, **Afrokane**. (Yes!) Especially since I wasn't writing the fic as romance. Er... I guess this 3rd part came out fluff, though. --; 

More Notes:   
Hmm... The idea for this fic started when I was half asleep, trying to prod myself to start doing a major school project. (It was a psychiatry paper. He he he...XD) I "dreamed" the scenes, mostly the ones where Sasuke comes home, and his almost sulky attitude with Sakura. The original premise was, "paranoia: why Sasuke would never live a sane life." I started the fic as angst and wanted to end it with an ambivalent sort of hope. scratches head Obviously, I failed that. (Fangirlism. Ach.) 

This was actually supposed to be a one-shot fic. Since I wrote this while procrastinating, I wrote it in fragments. Wrote the 1st part one night. Finished the 1st the next night and started on the 2nd part. Then I finished the 2nd part on the third night, and started on the 3rd part. The 3rd part took more time to finish though. 

Anyway, I couldn't connect the 2nd and 3rd part with the 1st to form a single 1-shot fic because it would turn out... well, anti-climatic. I couldn't resolve the cohesiveness issue so I posted the story the way I wrote it: in pieces. 

Again, thank you for your time, thank you for reading. Comments, complaints, questions, etcetera always welcome and much appreciated. 


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